"Finally," as senior forward Terriel Ross said, after having lost to the Patriots in the semifinals the previous two seasons.

Coach Bonita Johnson admitted before and after Thursday's 70-61 victory that her team had long had No. 2 Curtis (29-5) on its minds as it began preparing for yet another deep playoff run.

That hurdle now overcome, the No. 3 Cubs (29-6) face a new challenge in top-seeded Ville Platte (31-2) in the Class 3A state championship game at 4 p.m. Saturday, the program's first state title game appearance since 2010.

"It's gonna be different," said Ross, the team's lone senior. "I remember one practice, Coach told me, 'You have the chance to make history,' so it's not here yet, but I'm looking forward to it, and I think it's a feeling that I'll never get again in life, so I'm looking forward to it, and I'm ready."

U-High reached the Class 2A state championship game in 2010, but fell 71-58 to St. Thomas Aquinas.

"We've been in the finals," Johnson quickly added to her senior's assessment. "We just haven't won yet."

Johnson said U-High and Ville Platte haven't faced during her 18-year coaching career.

Then, the Cubs hadn't beaten Curtis on recent playoff runs, either.

But the Patriots said this U-High squad had a different feel to it than in past meetings.

"Their energy was different," Curtis senior guard Tia Charles said. "They came out with a different type of hype, just to make sure that they could win this game, and we just didn't come out with the energy that we needed."

The Cubs had been both confident and anxiously awaiting that semifinal matchup throughout the season.

But that swagger and excitement with which they've carried themselves hit a fever pitch during a series of fourth-quarter runs in which the defense's ability to convert turnovers into easy scores looked at times like a feeding frenzy.

"It was pure confidence," Ross said. "I had faith in my team and myself, so therefore, even though they were up, I didn't look at the scoreboard. It was just getting back on (defense) and focusing on getting the boards, and we did that, so we came out with the victory … We just started playing our game instead of playing kinda timid."

Even freshman point guard Kaila Anderson handled the veteran Patriots' backcourt and defensive pressure with a confidence seemingly beyond her years en route to an 11-point, nine-rebound performance.

"At the beginning of the game I was kind of nervous because it was my first time actually playing, playing," Anderson said. "Then as the game went on, I got settled and started to have fun, and we came out on top."

The comfort and confidence levels have to have only grown with the ability to final overcome recent playoff nemesis Curtis.

Ville Platte Coach Dorothy Doulet watched the matchup between the Cubs and Patriots and said her team will have its hands full matching the No. 3 seed.

"I think it's a privilege and an honor to be able to play U-High," Doulet said. "Her strategy she told me before the game was to get the victory because she's been falling to Curtis. Now she's got the victory, so I count it a blessing that we'll be able to match up with her. I think we'll be a good matchup together."

Johnson knows defending the Bulldogs and their dynamic inside-outside combination of Deja McKinney and Tyreonna Doucet will present its own problems.

"Defending two guards is definitely different than defending a guard and an inside player," Johnson said. "They're so tall and athletic. We have to keep them off the boards and not give them anything easy."